Razer Struggling To Get OEMs Onboard With Project Christine

Back at CES 2014, Razer unveiled an ambitious new concept called Project Christine. For those unfamiliar, Project Christine is basically where Razer plans to build a completely modular PC where parts can be swapped out as easy as sliding it out from its slot and putting in a new one.

This is compared to current PC building where users will have to struggle with screws, bolts, washers, and also figure out which wire goes onto which port on the motherboard, and so on. Not to say that it is extremely difficult to do, but it’s definitely not for those who aren’t as tech savvy.

Razer’s Project Christine aims to do away with the complexity but unfortunately it seems that the project is struggling to get off the ground, namely due to OEMs who seem more concern about profits as opposed to embarking on something completely new and unique.

Speaking to the folks at Polygon, Razer’s CEO, Min-Liang Tan, expressed some of his frustrations when he approached OEMs with his idea. “We’ve been trying to speak to other OEMs and I think the response has been generally, ‘OK, what’s the forecast for this? How many units are you going to ship? What are the margins?’ and stuff like that where we’re being very open with them to say, ‘Look, we don’t know.’”

It is understandable that OEMs will be concerned about profits and revenue. After all why would they sink potentially millions of dollars, time, and manpower into a project that has no potential of succeeding, right?

Tan also stated that Razer’s interest in Project Christine is to be part of the ecosystem and that they’re willing to open the project up to everyone as opposed to mainly generating profits. “We’re trying to encourage the rest of the OEMs, and we’re literally telling them, ‘Look, we’re not going to make a cent out of this. We just want to be part of an ecosystem; we’re happy to open this up to everyone to do that.’”

At this rate we’re not sure if Project Christine will take off, which would be extremely unfortunate given that Project Christine is probably one of the more interesting PC concepts that we’ve seen in a long time, and with PC sales reportedly on the decline, perhaps it needs something like Project Christine to help reinvigorate it. What do you guys think?